Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One and Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Bertram is also the author of the suspense novels Unfinished, Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare, Light Bringer, Daughter Am I, More Deaths Than One, and A Spark of Heavenly Fire.

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I think a lot about safety, wondering how to be adventurous and bold while at the same time not embarking on a death march.

Human predators mostly look for the weakest member of the herd, someone who walks with their head down, someone that no one will notice if they disappear. To that end, I keep my head up, try to pay attention to what’s around me, and always wear a hat that makes me stand out. Wide brims with flowers, ribbons, feathers — any sort of decoration that makes people look and smile. Seems like a silly sort of thing to do for protection, but getting people to notice me in a good way makes it harder for a predator to cull me from the herd. Not that I started wearing hats for that reason. The hats came first, the reason later. I wear hats for protection from the sun, and when I would get gorgeous ribbons on presents, I started decorating my hats with them. It’s nice that the extra bit of color makes people smile and me noticeable.

When I was trying to decide whether to get a new car or get my Beetle restored, the deciding factor was safety. Admittedly, an old bug, even one with a new engine and transmission isn’t the safest car from a driving point of view, but from a predator point of view, it’s worth its weight in gold. Everyone notices my car. Not everyone talks to me, but everywhere I go, someone does, and that is protection. And if something were to happen to me, if I were disappeared from an interstate truck stop, someone would notice that my car was there way longer than it should be. Most cars don’t garner attention because most cars are common. But mine is an uncommon car of memories and dreams. And there is safety in that.

Although I blog about my adventures, giving frequent updates, I am particularly careful not to post itineraries online. After I’ve been somewhere, I will tell you about it, but I see no reason to leave a trail for predators to follow. For someone who lives her life online, I guard my privacy. (And you should too.)

I do other things of course. Carry an external battery good for four charges of my cell phone. I stash filled water bottles under my seat, carry extra food, keep my camping quilt and a pillow handy, have a flashlight near at hand, keep a few tools in the glove compartment, have an emergency kit in the car, and oh, so many other things.

When I’ve hiked by myself, I’ve carried a map, generally just a handout at a trail head or printed off the internet, but when/if I ever get into a real backpacking situation, I will make sure I have a topographical map and compass, and will know how to use them.

I’m researching other things at the moment, such as bear spray (which some people say is great, some people say no, some people say it’s illegal in areas) and a bear horn to scare the animal away if I were ever so lucky to see one. Knowing me, though, I’d probably do what I do when I see a snake — watch it in awe. But we’ll see what my research holds. (I’m more concerned with dogs, though. I’ve never even seen a bear when I hiked in the woods, but I have been bitten by someone’s unleashed dog because the stupid woman couldn’t control her three animals.)

I’m not foolish enough to say nothing will happen to me, because anything can happen, and often does. But that knowledge is a safety feature I carry with me at all times. Cockiness can get people killed. Caution can save lives. And I am almost always cautious. I listen to my surroundings, not music. I try to be present in the moment and not get lost in daydreams. I use two trekking poles to save my knees, to help me keep my balance on slopes, and hopefully to ward off anything that comes close.

All this is by way of saying that I do everything in my power to minimize whatever risks I might face, so that I can face adventure with wonder and a touch of boldness.

I understand how difficult it is to see someone you care about take risks, so I hope this makes you feel better about the risks I take.

Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One debunks many established beliefs about what grief is, explains how it affects those left behind, and shows how to adjust to a world that no longer contains the loved one. “It is exactly what folk need to read who are grieving.”(Leesa Heely Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator ).

Other books by Pat Bertram

Available online wherever books and ebooks are sold.

Grief: The Great Yearning is not a how-to but a how-done, a compilation of letters, blog posts, and journal entries Pat Bertram wrote while struggling to survive her first year of grief. This is an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.

While sorting through her deceased husband’s effects, Amanda is shocked to discover a gun and the photo of an unknown girl who resembles their daughter. After dedicating her life to David and his vocation as a pastor, the evidence that her devout husband kept secrets devastates Amanda. But Amanda has secrets of her own. . .

When Pat’s adult dance classmates discover she is a published author, the women suggest she write a mystery featuring the studio and its aging students. One sweet older lady laughingly volunteers to be the victim, and the others offer suggestions to jazz up the story. Pat starts writing, and then . . . the murders begin.

Thirty-seven years after being abandoned on the doorstep of a remote cabin in Colorado, Becka Johnson returns to try to discover her identity, but she only finds more questions. Who has been looking for her all those years? And why are those same people interested in fellow newcomer Philip Hansen?

When twenty-five-year-old Mary Stuart learns she inherited a farm from her recently murdered grandparents -- grandparents her father claimed had died before she was born -- she becomes obsessed with finding out who they were and why someone wanted them dead.

In quarantined Colorado, where hundreds of thousands of people are dying from an unstoppable, bio-engineered disease, investigative reporter Greg Pullman risks everything to discover the truth: Who unleashed the deadly organism? And why?

Bob Stark returns to Denver after 18 years in SE Asia to discover that the mother he buried before he left is dead again. At her new funeral, he sees . . . himself. Is his other self a hoaxer, or is something more sinister going on?